EPOR and acute respiratory distress syndrome: Additionally, the EPO/EPOR signaling pathway has also been reported to exhibit pleiotropic cytoprotection in ALI, including alleviation of endothelial cells proliferation (Beleslin-Čokić et al., 2011), inhibition of epithelial cells apoptosis, and promotion of pulmonary angiogenesis (Heitrich et al., 2016).